Although Feb. 3 is more commonly celebrated on the liturgical
calendar as the feast of St. Blase, it is also the memorial of St.
Anskar, a remarkable missionary who risked his life to bring the
Catholic faith to Scandinavia during the ninth century.
Anskar was born in 801, just a year after Pope Leo III bestowed the
title of emperor on the Frankish King Charlemagne.
Between 772 and 805,
the emperor would achieve the dubious feat of spreading Christianity to
the northern Saxon tribes through a process of conquest and forced
conversion.
Eventually in his missionary work, Anskar would continue this
northward extension of the Church.
However, he would employ very
different means in his attempt to convert the northern tribes, seeking
to impart the faith through his inspired preaching and exemplary life.
Anskar was brought up among Benedictine monks in northern France and
received his own monastic calling shortly after the death of Charlemagne
in 814.
A number of visions and dreams, which he had experienced from a
young age, culminated in a vision of supernatural light, accompanied by
a command to surrender his life for the sake of God's kingdom.
“The majesty of almighty God was revealed to me,” he later recalled.
“A most sweet voice, the sound of which was more distinct than all other
sounds, and which seemed to me to fill the whole world, came forth from
the same divine majesty, and addressed me and said: 'Go and return to
Me crowned with martyrdom.'"
Anskar never became a martyr in the literal sense, but he undoubtedly
gave himself in a sacrificial way to the service of the Church from
that time onward.
This service intensified when his Benedictine
community moved in 822 to northwestern Germany, where Anskar took up the
work of heading the monastery school and giving religious instruction
to the public.
In 826, Charlemagne's imperial successor –his son known as Louis the
Pious– sought the service of the German Benedictines in evangelizing the
pagan kingdom of Denmark.
The abbot suggested Anskar undertake the
mission, and he gladly accepted.
Only one other monk in the community,
named Aubert, was willing to accompany Anskar on the dangerous mission,
while the others refused and asked him to reconsider.
While Anskar outwardly accomplished little during his first two years
in Denmark, he did found a school for children, instructing them in the
Catholic faith in hopes that they could eventually participate in the
conversion of their country.
But eventually King Harald, who had
welcomed the missionaries following his own conversion, fell out of
favor with the people, forcing Anskar's exit as well.
In the nearby kingdom of Sweden, the pagan king presided over a
traditional religion that considered him a descendent of the gods, and
which encouraged ancestor-worship, human sacrifice and polygamy.
Word
came to Emperor Louis that many Swedes had learned of the Christian
religion and wished to convert, prompting him to request Anskar's
service again.
Anskar and his companion Witmar were robbed by Vikings on the way to
Uppsala, then the Swedish capital and a center of pagan worship.
He
obtained permission to preach from Sweden's King Bjorn, and made steady
progress for two years before returning to Hamburg to be consecrated as a
bishop.
Returning to the Scandinavian territories, the new bishop
continued to form monasteries and schools.
A tragic period in Anskar's later life began in 845, when King Eric
of Jutland led an invasion that laid waste to his diocese.
Anskar spent
the next four years wandering throughout the desolate land, attempting
to care for the remaining Catholics and rebuild the destroyed churches.
Then, after being named Archbishop of Bremen in 849, Anskar took an
astonishing step.
Approaching the same King Eric, with almost
unimaginable humility, he sought – and received – permission to preach
the Gospel in his realm.
He returned to Denmark, where he soon
encountered a number of Danes who had secretly become Christians and now
wished to worship openly.
He returned to Sweden four years later, after receiving encouragement
in a vision from his late former abbot, and strengthened the Christians
who were experiencing persecution under King Eric's successor.
In 854,
he returned to Hamburg, where he spent the last 11 years of his life.
One of his most notable accomplishments during this time was in
negotiating the release of many Christians who had been kidnapped by
members of hostile pagan tribes.
Near the end of his life, the bishop – known for his extremely
conscientious ways – became worried that he had not become a martyr, as
he was asked to do in his youth.
Eventually, however, he received a
revelation from God that allowed him to accept the judgment of his
disciple, biographer, and successor Rimbert – that “his whole life was
like a martyrdom.”
“He endured many labours amongst foreigners apart from those within
his own diocese,” Rimbert wrote of Anskar, “which were caused by the
invasions and ravages of barbarians and the opposition of evil men – and
in addition, the personal suffering which, for the love of Christ, he
never ceased to bring upon himself.”
St. Anskar died on Feb. 3, 865.
He would be known to subsequent generations at the “Apostle of the North.”